Repost for Heather (September 1, 2007)

Sophie and I had the most brilliant day together! Sophie walked down to my house just as I was about to go play in the stream with Chocolate and Little Fella. We got changed and went to splash about. Chocolate is crazy and prances about like a manic deer while biting the water. It's lots of fun to watch her antics. Little Fella, once placed in the water, pulls himself to a suitable spot and then lays down, chest deep, watching the water flow by. (Dodo does not enjoy playing with us in the stream. She'd rather nap in the sun.)
After thirty minutes or so we got out and drove off to Bitan. There, we rented a 'Swan Boat' and paddled about. Here's the view from the bridge:

Sophie on the bridge:

Our Swan Boat's head. (Notice the regal crown!)

We went at a very relaxed pace (mostly because I did nearly all of the pedalling!) Here is a very mellow bird, sunning itself at the bottom of this rock face.

And the bird again:

And the bird hunting (unsuccessfully.)

Of course, we had to take pictures of each other:

After about 30 minutes, Sophie decided it was time to pedal (in her snazzy new shoes.)

Here are some views. In the first picture you can see some of the boats are pulled up on the bank. They do this before a typhoon comes, using a huge crane that swings them up (and then two or three days later, swings them back down.) I know a sizable typhoon is coming when the boats are up. (These are still up from the last typhoon, I guess.)

The bridge we walked across is closer to us (with lots of cables), the big bridge further back is for driving over:

Nice house, eh?

Here's a family group. The rear boat was tied to the front boat with two young boys sitting in it on their own. There were four adults and two little girls in the front boat. Of the four adults, one was a man. He was doing ALL the pedalling! Phew!

Turtles sunning themselves:


A diving board! You can't see, but there was a knotted rope to climb up the rock to the diving board.

After we returned the Swan Boat we went to play some games. There was one where we had to bounce pingpong balls into cups in order to get points. We had a blast AND got enough points to win a beading set AND a slinkey. We then went to play, um, a game. There's a table with a current of air passing over the surface. You hit a flat disk with a, uh, hitter, and try to score goals. The disk whips across the surface really quickly. Whatever it's called, it's great fun. We played two games (I won both! Ha! (Boy, that's sad being happy beating an eight-year-old, isn't it. )) Finally, we played a computer game that was a variation on 'concentration': We had to remember what the cute cartoon girl was wearing and pick out her clothes and accessories from a pile of clothes.
We were at that point in need of refreshment, so we went for a 'bao bing.' This is a heavenly creation: Shaved ice, assorted fruit or vegetable toppings (yes, I know it sounds weird but it is truly amazing) with syrup and/or sweetened condensed milk. We ordered a mango ice. It was special because it was not shaved ice but shaved frozen milk!
The ice shaving machine (with a chunk of frozen milk in it.)

Our shaved milk:

Covered with fresh mango and sweetened condensed milk:

Mmmmm, so delicious!

And here is Soph drinking a mou gua niou nai (papaya milk. Blech!!)

Next, we went to the Weekend Flower and Jade Market. It's awesome! Here are a bunch of pictures of orchids.


I'm not crazy about orchids but I like these little yellow ones:



There's lots of other stuff for sale, like fountains:

Cute kitsch (and a cute girl)

Very kitschig (sp?) kitsch!

Lots of Bonsai. This one was pretty neat. (Sophie looks a little bored here but she insisted on being in almost every photo!):

Adorable tiny people, trees and bridges to decorate your bonsai, fountain, fish tank etc:

Then we moved on to the jade market part. Sophie was enchanted with all of the heart-shaped lockets. I wouldn't buy them for her but did take a photo to remember them by! She had to show the lao-ban her locket with a picture of her granny and grandpa in it.

We did some shopping at the jade market and then returned back to my scooter via the flower market, so one final shot of some bougainvilla:

Sophie realised that she was STARVING and needed some ice cream. Seven flavours in one dish!



These two markets are located under the Jian Guo overpass. Talk about not wasting space, eh? I think that Monday~Friday the area is used as a parking lot.

We headed over to Grandma Nitti's and joined Simon. Henry took some photos of us that turned out pretty well. We are modelling our bracelets that we bought at the jade market.

Simon is NOT reaching for my breast here, but trying to cover up my bracelet which he thought was horribly unattractive. Bah, what does he know? :o)

I left for a while to go for a swim at the pool. 1.5 km in 43 minutes (one minute faster than before! ) It was a wonderful day!